Sure bets: Big Dancing and the new bass in town

Six teams have qualified for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The remaining 59 places will be filled in the next six days, because this is Championship Week, when regional tournaments, such as the Big 12 tournament in Kansas City, will be held to determine the final standings of the major basketball leagues.

On ESPN, there will be wall-to-wall basketball coverage. Games will be played all day and all night. Large and small schools will lay it on the line. Cameras will find players’ parents in the crowd. In the student sections of every single gym, newly-shorn mohawks will be unveiled and bodies will be painted. Male fans will act crazy, too.

And near the end of the week, when bad teams have been eliminated and good ones have earned the right to move on, you will hear the following phrase uttered by every single radio and television announcer in every single game: “Get out your dancing shoes because the (INSERT TEAM MASCOT) are going to the Big Dance!”

A sport that’s lowbrow enough for the rest of the world should be huge here

Richard Oliver writes about the current state of soccer, to wit: it’s in the toilet. In other nations, the players are thugs, their fans are one warm beer away from rioting, and the sport may not be as popular worldwide as we’ve been led to believe. Given the scandals of baseball, NASCAR, track, the NFL and the NBA, Oliver thinks the jaded American sports fan is ready for the appalling reputation of soccer.

Two tidbits about flying

In Country Scientist, Forrest M. Mims III writes about trying to photograph the plane, the sky and the earth while a passenger on a commercial jet liner, only to anger everyone else in the plane, who wants the window shut so they can watch lame television re-runs on the in-flight movie screen. It’s a tension-filled flight through the skies of terror, and don’t tell anyone the surprise ending!

And in other flying news, there’s this: a Google map image, taken apparently over Utah:

Yes, that appears to be a cruise missile. Discuss.

On MySA.com

 The sobering saga of Bonnie Terry continues today. Nicole Foy tells how Terry, who dedicated her life to helping the down and out, was diagnosed with cancer. After a life spent helping people who fell through the cracks of the nation’s social services networks, she found it happening to her.

 Nearly 20 percent of sex offenders, who are required to register their location with state and local officials,are missing. “You’re going to send the citizens into a panic” when they learn police lack the manpower to keep track of sex offenders who frequently change addresses, Houston Police Sgt. Glen Shepherd told Polly Ross Hughes of the Express-News Austin Bureau.

Here’s why it’s a big deal, according to Hughes’ story:

The U.S. Justice Department, in the most comprehensive study to date, found that 5.3 percent of sex offenders were re-arrested for another sex crime within three years of their release. When compared to non-sex offenders, they were four times more likely to be arrested for a sex crime.

News related to water

CPS Energy are stocking Braunig Lake with 12,000 northern largemouth bass today. The bass are confused, they’re new to the neighborhood and they’re suckers for bait. You might as well fire up the grease and make the hush puppies, cause this is a sure thing.

Elsewhere in non-drinking water news, the Texas Cavaliers’ River Parade, one of the highlights of Fiesta every year,will start 30 minutes earlier and in a different location when the 54 floats shove off on April 23. The launch comes near Municipal Auditorium, which in the past was where they disbanded at the end of the parade. The parade also will get under way at 7 p.m., rather than the previous start time of 7:30. River beautification has eaten up some seating, so this allows more space for fans.